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5/1/2012 5:00PM

Opinion: Going Native

Best of the Web columnist James Taranto on the expected fallout from Elizabeth Warren touting her Native American heritage to get a professorship. Plus, editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz says Mitt Romney needs to improve his game. Photo: AP.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... bastions it's ... was a bit more unusable this diversity claim to get a job or Harvard law school welcomed opinion Journal I've were here with our best with today columnist James trot out James thanks for joining us I stood there this is the candidate for state Senate race in Massachusetts I was but warned of a darling of the left ... who will help bring this up consumer for the financial Protection Bureau in Washington really it's the Scott Brown who was ... of course I've ... got the seat of a special election when that Ted Kennedy passed away now while ... what's come up lately is a missile or a knob of ... Harvard law school professor and ... at various times in her career has been identified as a Native American and of looking at every ... it ... doesn't necessarily seem plausible I mean you look at her and she uses white as a ghost a polar bear after a double feature being so stupid but I've ... but she ... was listed in various law school faculty director is in the nineteen eighties and nineteen cents a quote native American American Indian ... by law professor ... she seems to have dropped about designation about the time she came to Harvard in the mid nineties ... in eighteen eighty six the Harvard Crimson state newspaper ... quoted a loss to Harvard Law School spokesman as saying ... it's up to the leaders of ... the big to do over diversity real adverse to the loss was a popular topic stocks we don't have any ... female minority law professors ... Elizabeth which is the native American ... right so they've they've been ... for the beer is time so she's been identified as such right now there is that lately now we've called for evidence of ... that first it appeared to be completely baseless but now we get word that to ... some generations back to other apparently was a ... Native American ancestry geologist who said that he couldn't find any evidence on the photo Boston Herald which has been relieved by Italy on this story told him that he couldn't find any ... Indian ancestors now he says he's found a ... Augusta great great great grandmother so she's one thirty second American Indian if this is true ... that there's ... something wrong with being part of our identity and we celebrate the diversity of America ... but if she I'd use this to gas pipes advantages in her Korea earlier in her career and of course the sort of so called diversity is quite beneficial for advanced in academia ... I'd ... and then turned around and drop this designation took what the state of the affirmative action hire August looks really bad ... well well it didn't think about ... the political impact and I think we got a graphic ... with this Rasmussen poll this is a very tight race ... that was that was expected to be tightened ... its of both sides risen lot of money what ... about the political impact here because ... as you said ... this is not ... a necessarily going to be welcomed by voters if there's a perception that she used this to advance your career dropped it ... after she Doherty become a Harvard ... law professor wished to her campaign has been putting out denials including a statement for one J Westbrook of the University of Texas where he once were ... he says quote to suggest that she needed some special event to be higher purity words to so it ... she was hard for her great abilities as she Transpower her family tree had nothing to do with that ... I've ... I've tended to scalp is to dial ... if you can find me an example of a college administrator admitting that somebody was tired right because of his family tree and offer his great ability is ... I will take this course Orissa but I think this is the sort of fiction that goes along with affirmative action in general it's part of why ... the whole thing is so proud ... the political fight implications of what Massachusetts has a lot of Irish and Italian people ... are who made up of voted for Ted Kennedy but who don't benefit from racial preferences and may not like seeing are seeing the sort of thing ... and there's also a class issue here ... there was in ... a decade some years ago in which a couple of by ... Irish American five and claimed that ... the stock bring similar claims of family lore of photographs of their ancestors ... that they were part black ... there were actually fire ... for for racial brought under Boston civil service laws ... by ... it'll be why lawyers should be able to get away with the sort of thing is that ordinary working stiffs Canto also I do wonder what the reaction is going to be you know how by the Boston Herald quoting of ... a leader of a Native American group essentially saying with ... the post war is not a real live American the job of Gandhi was ... somewhat nutty as funds with more ... obvious of lineage ... right at me and what the idea that being a native of Magnum I'm that that some percentage of native American what qualifies you for a job as a law professor ... is kind of weird in the first place but that's where we've come with ... by Justice O'Connor and the whole diversity rational racial preferences which by the way ... may ... be on the verge of falling in the next Supreme Court term ... because ironically the Cordis you're a case involving the University of Texas where Professor Warren used to work so what goes around comes around that's right okay I think is we've got this of ... more in the situation with or background and also us got brown hitting the YouTube moment hitting a half court shot ... probably to ... cooperate with her for her but the November's long way away and Massachusetts ... Democratic states are going to ... get its chips penetration is that ... we're now working ... on ... go from a ... set a race to the national race and not ... specifically back Kaminski is here that thanks for joining us that the ... question is ... how we grade Brock Obama as a ... as a foreign policy president now I think my prediction is that if of the economy doesn't grow more quickly when you're a lot about the Obama foreign policy record because of ... the second one talk much about the domestic record study ... as you look at the present Obama what it ... what you see here ... when he was really good sauce on one thing he's very much made this ... the team so the above last week with the one-year anniversary of ... been my staff ... that attack ads on Mitt Romney ... time and this last night the stock of the White House ... who ... um see to me to come forward with what use right now is to give a speech on Afghanistan which is due to its first one in any difference but it's also shows that I think he thinks ... that this is a bit of history with him ... especially if economies not doing very well ... well it did the goal of this mission is to say we saw the video footage of them arriving there ... I did nothing but so what will this campaign headquarters there for much of the but ... I do think we're going to hear more about this but particularly if the economy ... does not suffer a as you look in Afghanistan is you look around the world what what are the what the Obama triumphs that he can say that the voters ... this fall love looking a bit safer ... what is actually a mixed record and an artfully negative one you know in Afghanistan ... he ... the notes do but he did order surge of troops which I think ... has ... been a turnaround stewardship Gannett said it was the position ... where we may ... be able to be Afghanistan ... more stable and to put this in the US of a ... tent down on the insurgency there ... it is a problem with Pakistan assiduously his fault he has tried to get the Pakistanis ... in the Middle East ... it's a tricky toppled the bull market dot the ... league is better off ... I'm you can say that he did eventually push for ... of course the Mubarak to to leave in Egypt and the sort of ... get that ball rolling with this Willy the writes Rex in ... what democracy or something less ... than salubrious but we'll see ... but think he will make the case that ... you know in in in a lot of the hot spots the responder relatively well ... I think that's true with the same time is a lot of is a bit of an ad ... hoc of the to the Obama foreign policy ... I there's a lack of a set of grander vision that you can point to this is one of the white ... and his vision coming in was that I'm not George Bush ... I've been to work with dictators yet ... and that was overtaken by some big events last few years well ... lack of a grand vision craps but they were these can be Obel to say it's a look idea I got rid of of that love them and we haven't been attacked since the end I think those are ... things that the American people are going to just to give them some credit for ... Michael with PC reading our paper this week said yet what what he hasn't done is made investments in intelligence and breaking killed ... been want what you what you didn't make the most of the intelligence opportunity similarly when you're ... shooting people from our drones are not getting that intelligence said about this is out of this is an argument that's gonna reach the average person is this the capital on we have been attacked but ... is that a legitimate criticism that he has been investing in total the irony the way is that you know where he succeeded especially on counterterrorism ... is where he's ... followed ... and built on ... the push ups ... you know push us start with with the drones ... as Obama has escalated into attacks in Pakistan I can promise to close Gitmo that still open he's now returning military tribunals for ... the of the nine eleven runners ... I think in the areas where ... does a double as a hostage on Campaign ... fingers and I'm ... a real high and we miss the partisan administration to ... take out terrorists imprisoned ... at the sporty put the dough one of the debate went on was this that we are ... I which is not openly acknowledge very often because disincentive to ... keep them alive because that these political legal problems for you back here ... but Michael cases that we are right that ... you know ... a lot of terrorists is clear that the terrorists because like tears can tell you ... who's boss is on over the next attack like um whose it is so so on ... I think there's a cost to the way they handled the Scana errors ... OK and what ... we said probably generally for policies got ... a really good story to tell although ... it and so this last week suggesting that it probably wouldn't kill bin law ... probably to reach I'm guessing in terms of ... most voters believing when it gets to backfire on them too as it makes him seem smaller than you once you've seen it on ... by the way I think actually makes net Romney's response and although ... I'm still ... or does even Jimmy Carter would've ordered it and instead of the law to kill ... my thinking makes ... Romney ... if he is this well ... mid to high ground on its uses a the commander in chief is a very serious response to a job ... is this to weaken for Obama in a way that the people defaulting with this that ... he's politicize foreign policy takes that mean we haven't seen before ... a lot of his decisions seem so much more driven by ... unit is political in the coming election campaign ... in Afghanistan that he supported the surge in order to surge ... at the end of two thousandnine ... and then last June of two thousand eleven ... he pulled the plug on its own search looking very much of a ... campaign because ... he sees that the war is not popular in America in his narrative is that I'm the president peace ... before he was to be seen as some of the start of the ... most ... barbaric and so ago with other bad ... things for joining as it ... were to take a quick break here not what we come back to ... Rabinowitz is can give us the road map for a bit Romney victory in the fall would stay with us ... so what does the Obama administration like airline mergers Intel's is Allmon Jenkins Our Business World columnist Holman thanks for joining us ... thank you again ... so ... it's a stretch to say that the Obama administration has presidencies go it is ... no ... maybe not hostile to free markets but ... at least very skeptical ... of free markets and yet we have a situation where they don't seem to ... object to airline mergers ... and why is that ... and that is truly not an midyear legacy carriers had for for years the analyst their CEOs have been ... demanding room to consolidate making him ... she laughed with each other and make more money ... and I finally happening and what is happening in administration ... and I think it is cause I was holding up which is the resurgence of the airline labor ... unions that not only stronger and these airlines are increasingly in favor of consolidation because these deals are always coming ... which promises ... to protect jobs to ... go to pay wages and to avoid blackouts so suddenly the union in the last two years to become ... champions of ... the nation rather than opponents to ... the house is a ... the airline that that ... that the unions and char and I think the Obama people like that ... okay so of businesses that ... are seen to consolidate men raise profits ... that sort of the idea of business often but ... it's hard for me to see that ... you've bought administration cheering that if it happens of for example in the oil industry ... I would think they're a lot of industries where he had unions but that that that is there is there a recognition that the airlines that basically have to get together to survive ... there certainly is and you know a lot of these airlines that have into bankruptcy will find some ... three times in the last couple of decades ... and it you know that the country needs the air service and it needs major legacy carriers ... are the ones who may mean provide circuitry smaller and smaller cap to UPS ... de JetBlue's in the south to southwest don't do that ... doesn't work to have these airlines around and it's not unusual for a Democratic leaders to lay dead ... you know cartel eyes industries with large union ... constituency is ... it's a you know that there are only in favor of competition is taking money away from a hapless and giving it to other Apple ... Macs in favor of the ... composition of its private labor of love at a Jackson comparable benefits ... it was something about the anti trust division at the ... Justice Department the current Justice Department that there were threats they were ... exercising ... admirable regulatory restraint in some cases but you're always saying this and airlines were to ... in you not seen in wireless The and that in the telecom carriers when it began to follow the same reasons by the way ... I have seen it yet but it didn't happen ... Airlines are a unique case because ... it wasn't so much money since the regulation of finding the political ... forces have held last month the economic logic to you when you reduce the number of legacy carriers ... that will says I think this is that interesting but maybe help a lot as you can use segment for business audience of the a ... the recipe for I getting our regulatory relief from Washington is to have ... a lot of union labor and not very profitable business its ... own it ... with airlines that just are that the thing is weird ... because ... politicians have such a powerful interests in our lives they ... note that the unions and politicians are in favor of intelligent nothing is going to stop it ... OK ... home and ... thanks for that ... update and appreciate that ... you bet ... okay now of ... server and take one more brick in the winter back Dorothy Rabinowitz is going to tell us how Mitt Romney can win the fall election ... please stay with ... it's time for Mitt Romney to forget the gender gap so says Dorothy Rabinowitz or Pulitzer Prize winner Dorothy thanks for being here and ... I meant to be here ... he said I spend my time watching and I think a lot of people feel this way and I've had a feeling that the ... doing good ... just to clarify the the conventional media wisdom is that it does ... Romney is much less popular than Obama among women and therefore he's gonna ... spend a lot of time addressing women's issue this is this all that her campaign consultants among other things that can be deadly force ... him ... to ... that number defensible ... nobody can tell them anything ... and so it may not matter whether anyone says anything but ... how to understand the victim politics that when ... the women that we see on TV babbling about the gender gap ... this woman ... of people to wake up in the morning see themselves as ... regular Americans living here ... up until separate themselves into some category ... who don't feel offended buys every slight ... the DP is ... I ... would tell you that activists who have taken the role of women and and they are the ones that are inspiring on this ... I don't see any changes yet I see women ... Boeing said ... which president looked like ... in a dark cave figures ... distinguished figure ... one who was not just one of the masses but it was thought about our problems may even help the economy ... and they're not thinking how does he feel about when OKC your advice is Mitt Romney wants to win the election is one talk about economic and foreign policy issues its own or as central to the future this country and don't try to wear it too much to Evan and then also ... they are your devices ... and this is contrary to most of the media ... not so much and Romney have so much and I'm the and that's that that that that that need it ... there is no factual way of putting a wife out from ... it you could see the candidates during the primary seasons ... only get Gingrich ... presenting his wife as ... well translate ... that into been notoriously resistant ... to the idea that the presidency ... Hillary Clinton had to be stopped in its first term ... of that President is a trend going forward ... I don't know when ... but one that is the word we may have to pick this up another to ... the other the other quick advice from Dorothea it's good in your column is of ... no more late night TV appearances ... and ... the mobile phones ... talking to buffoons late night TV show Britain's ... Radiohead or at the end of the ICU for joining us today please come back ... every weekday at five Eastern for opinion Journal I've